Sam Brownback

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I will be brief and allow the Senator from Washington to speak. Some comments have been made. I certainly appreciate the excellent comments my colleague from Arkansas made. I think he very succinctly put forward that this is not a major problem. It could create problems in host countries. We do not need to turn our military facilities into abortion clinics and use Federal funds to pay for something a lot of taxpayers believe is deeply wrong, the killing of life. There is one argument that has been raised that I want to address directly, and that is that we are denying women their constitutional right if they can't use a military facility to have abortion on demand. Remember, currently, women are allowed to have an abortion in cases involving the life of the mother, rape, or incest. That is allowed at military facilities today. So we are strictly talking about the category of abortion on demand at military facilities. It has been raised that we are denying women a constitutional right. That is not the case. What we are talking about here is the use of taxpayer-funded military facilities. If that is denying women their constitutional right to an abortion, I would presume you would have to say we are denying that here because we do not provide abortions in federally funded facilities in the United States. We do not do that. That would be contrary to the Hyde amendment. This is not denying women a constitutional right. They can have an abortion in other places. The Senator from Arkansas was commenting about how that could occur. This is strictly about the use of Government-paid facilities which we do not allow anywhere else in the world because of the Hyde amendment. The Hyde amendment says you cannot use federally funded facilities, Federal dollars to pay for abortions. It is well-established U.S. law, a well-established U.S. position. We would now cut an exception to that if we allowed abortions in military facilities. The Clinton administration had done that for a period of time, but that has not been the law in this country for some period, since 1996. So we are not denying women a constitutional right. This is about the use of federally funded facilities, which we do not allow anywhere, for the conducting of an abortion. I think that is a point we should make very clear in this debate. With that, I reserve the remainder of our time.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I yield myself such time as I might consume.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Murray amendment. I think it is regrettable that we would tie up the DOD authorization bill with one of the most contentious issues of our day. Yet that is what is regrettably taking place in this legislation. On February 10, 1996, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996 was signed into law by then-President Clinton with a provision to prevent the Department of Defense medical treatment facilities from being used to perform abortions, except where the life of the mother is endangered or in cases of rape or incest. This provision refers to the Clinton administration policy instituted in January 1993 permitting abortions to be performed at military facilities. From 1988 to 1993, the performance of abortions was not permitted at military hospitals except when the life of the mother was in danger. That had been the longstanding policy. The Murray amendment, regrettably, which would repeal this culture of life provision, attempts to turn taxpayer-funded Department of Defense medical treatment facilities into, unfortunately, abortion clinics. Fortunately, the Senate has refused to let this issue of abortion adversely affect our armed services and rejected this amendment in the year 2000 by a vote of 51 to 49. We should reject it again this year. It is I think very harmful and wrong that we would hold America's armed services hostage to abortion politics using the coercive power of government to force American taxpayers--that is who pays for these facilities, the American taxpayers--to fund health care facilities where abortions are performed. This would be a horrible precedent and would put many Americans in a very difficult position. Americans are being asked to use their taxpayer dollars to fund something that many people find absolutely wrong and completely disagree with, and we are asking people to use taxpayer dollars to fund the Department of Defense medical facilities to do something with which they disagree. I realize we are terribly divided as a nation on the issue of abortion. That is painfully obvious and has been so for the past 30 years, but here we step into the issue of taxpayer funding, the use of taxpayer-funded facilities for abortions, and that is generally a terrain where most of the public has been quite in agreement we should not use taxpayer dollars. They may say privately you can go ahead with abortion, other people say no, you should not do that, but generally when you are saying use taxpayer-funded facilities, most people have said we should not go there, we should not use taxpayer-funded facilities for something that many people in the public believe is terribly wrong. That is why I oppose this amendment. When the 1993 policy permitting abortions in military facilities was first promulgated, military physicians, as well as many nurses and supporting personnel, refused to perform or assist in elective abortions. In response, the administration sought to hire civilians to do these abortions. Indeed, there is a CRS study we have on this topic which said that in the 6 years preceding the 1988 ban--I am reading directly from this CRS report dated June 5, 2000--military hospitals overseas have performed an average of 30 abortions annually. Last spring, though, when the military medical officials surveyed 44 Army, Navy, and Air Force obstetricians and gynecologists stationed in Europe, they found that all but one doctor adamantly refused to perform the procedure. That one holdout, too, quickly switched positions. No military medical personnel willing to perform abortions have stepped forward in the sprawling Pacific theater either. We can look at that and say there is not access to the service or we can say that the military personnel are just very uncomfortable and they do not want to do this in the medical facilities that are paid for by taxpayer dollars. Military facilities around the world operate as outposts of the U.S. Government. These are our facilities. They are seen as our facilities. They operate in many countries with differing ideas, with differing faiths, and with differing views on abortion. They do not want to be, as military personnel, having those abortions performed in these facilities operated and controlled by the U.S. Government. They do not want to perform the abortions themselves either. This amendment would allow doctors to use U.S. Government military personnel to perform a procedure that many countries and many cultures view very negatively and as wrong. I think we should listen to what some of our doctors are saying and, in the military, what some of them are saying by their actions. Therefore, if the Murray amendment were adopted, not only would taxpayer-funded facilities be used to support abortion on demand, but resources would be used to search for, hire, and transport new personnel simply so abortions could be performed, and this is abortion on demand. I want to make that clear as well because the current law provides for the use of these facilities for abortions when the life of the mother is endangered or in cases of rape or incest. So we are talking about the issue of abortion on demand. One argument used by supporters of abortions in military hospitals is that women in countries where abortion is not permitted will have nowhere else to turn to obtain an abortion. However, DOD policy requires military doctors to obey the abortion laws of the countries where they are providing services, so they still cannot perform abortions in those locations if they are in a country that has those laws. Military treatment centers, which are dedicated to healing and nurturing life, dedicated to a culture of life, should not be forced to facilitate the taking of innocent human life, the child in a womb, abortion on demand, where the life of the mother is not at stake or it is not a case of rape or incest. We already provide for that. I urge my colleagues to table the Murray amendment and to free America's military from abortion politics. American taxpayers should not be forced to fund the destruction of innocent life when many are deeply affected and believe this is not the sort of thing for which their taxpayer dollars should be used. Enough people are disappointed on some things we spend taxpayer dollars on without going into such a divisive area in our country, using taxpayer-funded facilities to allow abortions to take place. If passed, this amendment will have a tremendously detrimental impact on this DOD authorization bill, probably effectively killing it if this amendment is included. I therefore urge my colleagues to reject this amendment, for the benefit of the DOD authorization bill and the benefit of the taxpayers who do not view this as the right way to use their facilities, paid for at taxpayer expense, turned over as abortion clinics. It is a very divisive issue and an issue that is difficult for most Members to discuss. It is an issue on which we all have taken a position. All positions are clear on this topic. I hope we do not hold hostage this very important bill that is needed for this country in the time of this war on terrorism. Do not hold it hostage to such a difficult, divisive issue. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I just got a call in of somebody who may want to speak. If we can hold this for a minute, I think we can check it out.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I need to check this out, if I can. I will object at this point, but I hope we can get it done quickly.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, how much time do we have remaining?

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to our colleague from Arkansas, Senator Hutchinson.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I would like to correct the Record on a point that I made during a brief floor discussion between myself and Senator Specter. At the time, I was under the impression, given a previous understanding with the leadership, that my legislative language on the issue of human cloning had been provided to the majority leader. Included in my legislative language is a section that pertains to the patenting of human embryos. I am now informed that apparently that legislative language was never exchanged. I apologize for any confusion that this misunderstanding may have caused.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I admit filing a cloture motion is a very strong statement to make. However, I believe I have been very patient. The Senate has a responsibility to begin addressing this very important issue. It started last fall. We thought we were going to get it addressed in the February-March timeframe, and now we are in June. My cloture motion is meant to ensure that if the majority leader fails to invoke cloture on the underlying bill, we will then get a vote on this amendment of patenting people. The Senate needs to begin voting on these issues, and I am going to begin trying to get votes on my amendment as we go along the process. I was a little surprised last week to see that the Senate majority leader filed a cloture motion on the terrorism insurance bill so quickly--another parliamentary move to close debate on this very important issue of human patenting. I had hoped we could have had a fair debate and vote on my amendment. Unfortunately, the leadership is trying to prevent my amendment coming to a vote. Therefore, in the event the majority leader fails to invoke cloture on the underlying bill tomorrow, I am going to get a vote on my amendment, and that is what I seek. This should be a clear issue for people to decide where they stand on the issue of patenting of human clones and human embryos. That is why I filed this cloture motion. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I would like to respond to the Senator from Nevada. I have a great deal of respect for Senator Reid and for what he is doing. There was a unanimous consent request propounded before, and I agreed not to amend the basic bill on cloning. We had it agreed to with no amendments. I have a series of four or five amendments. This was not going to be an open debate about the issue. This was going to be two cloture motion votes at the end. There were to be no amendments, which I thought was a relinquishing of my rights, and we would just do two cloture motion votes. The order of the cloture motions became very important. If we are going to have two votes on a very big issue, the last one is going to be the one that would have the most possibility. Most Members of the body believe we should be doing something on cloning. If the first one does not get 60, it is highly likely the second one will be in a better position because a number of Members of the body may say, I am with you on this because something needs to be done on cloning, and would peel over and vote for the second cloture motion. I gave up a lot of ground and rights by agreeing to a tight timeframe and only two votes on arguably one of the biggest bioethical issues of our era. When we were not given a better position in the vote, it looked to me that the process was set to come up with a certain outcome. I cannot agree to that, not after this much effort has been put into the overall issue. That is why I disagreed to the unanimous consent request, and that is why I am bringing this issue up now. We need to get it considered. This is a vehicle on which we can consider it. We have a limited number of legislative days. The body needs to speak on these important issues. I think it is better if we just pull this issue up for a vote even before the cloture motion vote so it is a clean issue and people can decide. It does not remove the issue of cloning. Cloning can continue to take place in America and will, whether this amendment passes or not. This is strictly about whether the process of creating human beings or the human person itself can be patented. I think that this vote should be relatively easy for most Members of this body to take. That is why I bring it forward and continue to ask that the cloture petition of the majority leader not be agreed to at this time so we can consider this important legislation. I thank the floor manager for being willing to work with us. He has been very gracious and thoughtful, but I wanted to express my reasons for wanting to take the stance that I did. Exhibit 1 Biotechnology Industry Organization, Washington, DC, April 26, 2002. Mr. William Kristol, Chairman, Stop Human Cloning, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Kristol: Thank you for your thoughtful letter, which posed reasonable, provocative questions. With regard to the primary question you raised, BIO opposes patents on cloned human embryos. Many issues surrounding the research remain to be resolved, but on that matter our position is decided. I would like very much to discuss in person and at length your other concerns about our industry, and stem cell research in particular. Perhaps we can arrange something after the Brownback vote. Although I wish we had begun this conversation before the issues became so polarized, I welcome the opportunity you've opened for a dialogue. Sincerely, Carl B. Feldbaum, President.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for bringing up the issues. They are important ones before the country. We are on the terrorism reinsurance bill, an amendment I have pending on this bill. The amendment I have pending has to deal with the issue of whether you can patent a human embryo, patent a person, whether you can patent a clone. I regret we are considering this amendment in this way. It was my hope that we would be able to have a set amount of time on the floor to be able to openly debate the overall issue of human cloning. I was hopeful we would be able to have that debate in February or March of this year, but things came up, apparently, and we were not able to take this debate forward. I am left with the only recourse I have as a Member of this body, and that is presenting amendments to the body to consider the issue of whether or not we should proceed forward with the issue of human cloning, which is proceeding forward in America today. I think the wise course of action at this time is for us, overall, to have a moratorium on human cloning of all types for a 2-year time period. This will enable us to sort out what people really think and where this science would take us. I would favor a ban on human cloning, in order that we would not create human beings just for research purposes or for spare parts. But those issues will be left, perhaps, to address later this year. For now, we have a narrow issue before the body, and that is whether or not human clones should be allowed to be patented. The Patent Office has issued a statement that it believes they should not grant patents on human clones, that this is a violation of the 13th amendment to the Constitution on slavery. The Patent and Trademark Office has a longstanding policy of not permitting patents on people. Within the past year, they have awarded a patent to the University of Missouri on the process of human cloning, as well as what is referred to as the products of that process. It is clear that while the Patent and Trademark Office has an announced policy and, in view of recent patents that have been issued, as well as the fate of some of the patents that are currently pending, that the Congress should codify the view of the PTO in order to remove any ambiguity. We need to make it clear to the Patent Office that a human embryo created by a cloning process is a person, not a piece of property, not livestock that can be owned, and therefore should not be allowed to be patented. But there is a rub here because the Patent Office is being asked to issue these patents on people. They are saying, no, we should not grant these. A number of lawyers are challenging that and saying: What is a human clone? What is the young human embryo. They are stating: It is not a person, it is a piece of property; therefore, we can patent this. That is why we want to have clarity coming out of the Congress--a clear determination that you cannot patent a person. That should be illegal and should back up the position of the Patent and Trademarks Office. We all know this debate is really about the future of humanity. It is moving at a very rapid rate. Just a few years ago, the debate was over whether or not the Federal Government should subsidize the destruction of embryos for the purpose of harvesting their inner-cell mass. That debate was over the disposition of human embryos already in existence. Then the debate moved to whether or not embryos can be specifically created for their destruction. Human cloning--and whether or not we should utilize some of the most recent developments in the field of science--to create embryos for research purposes has been one of the latest debates. The next debate will be the issue of whether or not we can take outside genetic material and put it into the human species to the point where it can be reproduced in future generations of humans-- where one generation of humans would decide the future of following generations. That is called germ line manipulation, and that will be up next. This involves the issue of slavery again. It is a debate about whether or not individuals, and whether or not corporate America, can in fact patent and therefore control the destiny of a group of humans. It is clear, as several have already commented, that the patenting of people could very well lead to a commercial eugenics movement--where people and traits are bought and sold by those in a position of power and authority. The time will come--if this is allowed to continue--where human attributes are determined by a parents' pocketbook perhaps, rather than nature. Human cloning tampers with nature in a very significant way. Now what some in the corporate world want to do is start trafficking in human embryos--creating human embryo farms where embryos are mass produced on assembly lines by specific specifications and harvested for parts. These corporate interests are now trying to begin patenting the people they produce. As my colleagues are well aware, the University of Missouri has already been granted a patent on the human cloning process. The time for clarity is now. This disturbing bioindustrialization of life is continuing as I speak on the Senate floor. This debate is no longer about yet another step down the path toward a brave new world; it is, as the commentator Charles Krauthammer put it, ``downhill skiing.'' It is not just a step, it is downhill skiing. We need to stop it now. By denying private companies the ability to patent a human person, and barring them from patenting the process of human cloning, we will be sending a very clear message that it is unacceptable to turn people into property and then buy and sell them as if they were commodities. We should not allow corporate America to traffic in human embryos. By preventing the patenting of people, we will be stopping this practice. My amendment makes clear that it is not acceptable to patent people and not acceptable to patent the process of human cloning for the purpose and process of making people. This is a very important issue--one that demands our immediate attention. I urge my colleagues to vote against cloture on the terrorism reinsurance bill so that we can have our debate on the emerging biotech sector that I have mentioned. I want to address a couple of other issues. I have a letter I want to put forward for Members of the body to consider. It is from the President of the Biotechnology Industry Organization on the issue of patenting people and of embryos, Carl Feldbaum. He was writing to an individual and stated their organization's opposition to the patenting of human embryos. He states this: Thank you for your thoughtful letter, which posed reasonable, provocative questions. With regard to the primary question you raised, BIO opposes patents on cloned human embryos. Many issues surrounding the research remain to be resolved, but on that matter our position is decided. That is from Carl Feldbaum, President of Biotechnology Industry Organization, the lead organization for biotechnology, which is opposed to the patenting of people. I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record at the end of my statement. (See exhibit 1.)

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I urge Members to look at this. Here is the lead organization in the country that one might think is probably most in favor of patenting clones; yet they state they are opposed to it. By passing this amendment to ban the patenting of human clones, it does not ban, does not stop, does not even slow down the issue of human cloning. That will proceed. The research is allowed. I don't think it should be. I think we should join the House and the President in calling for an end to human cloning. This body has not done that. But this amendment does not address that issue. The only issue in front of the body in this amendment is whether or not the Patent Office will be allowed to patent human embryos and human clones. That is the only issue involved in this amendment--whether or not that patenting will occur. If my amendment passes, we will say: Patent Office, do not allow patents of human clones or embryos, but if people want to continue research on human clones, they can do so. If they want to continue to develop human clones, they can do so. I don't think it is wise or the right thing. I think it should stop, but that is not involved in this amendment. This is strictly about the issue of whether patents can be issued on a human clone. In that sense, it is a very clear issue of the division of what do you think a clone is? A person or property? In our jurisprudence system, it is one or the other--a person or a piece of property. If it is a piece of property, it can be patented. If it is a person, it cannot. That is against the 13th amendment to the Constitution on antislavery. If it is property, it can be patented. So it really goes to your fundamental view of how you view young life, the human embryo. Is it a person on the continuum of life, or is it a piece of property to be disposed of as its master chooses? Which is it? That is the issue in front of this body--whether this young human at this stage, if it were nurtured to grow into a full birth, full human, by anybody's definition, is considered a person or property. Now, some arguments were put forward last week on what this would do in the field of human cloning. Again, I state to my colleagues that it is not going to ban human cloning. This would simply limit the patenting process of human clones, and this is something that the Patent Office seeks clarifying authority on as well. For those reasons, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, to not support the cloture motion on terrorism reinsurance. This is the only vehicle we have open to us to be able to get these important and vital issues in front of the body. We would like to get a clear up-or-down vote on this issue, and this is what we need to do to get that vote before the body. I hope my colleagues will study this carefully and realize what they are and are not voting on with this particular motion. Cloture Motion

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. I do have the floor, I say to the Senator from Pennsylvania, and I am willing to yield for a question on this issue.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I would like to respond to a few issues raised by my friend and colleague from Utah. I have great admiration and respect for him. He is a senior Member of this body. He has done excellent work over the years. We have a disagreement on this one, although I don't know that we actually have a disagreement on the bill that is pending. I continue to note the bill that is pending is about a patenting issue. It is about banning patents, and it is not about banning patents on unfertilized eggs. The bill is on the zygote, embryo, fetus, child or adult; a living organism made by human cloning or a process of human cloning. That is the operative part. The zygote is the very young, fertilized egg. I agree that the unfertilized egg is not a person, to maybe clarify that in the debate. I don't think the unfertilized egg is a person and it is not protected under what we are proposing on this issue about patenting. The issue in front of us is patenting. I also respond to my dear colleague from Utah that what we are proposing does not ban research on human cloning, that he would like to proceed. I disagree with that, but the pending issue is not about banning human cloning. It says that what we should do is not allow patenting of human clones or of young people. It is a narrow issue. I want to make sure that it is clear to the body overall that the pending issue before this body is not about banning human cloning, it is not about a moratorium on human cloning; it is an issue that we should not patent the young human at any stage in the life continuum, when it is a young human. That is when you have an entity. Whether it is a clone or a natural human, if you nurture it and it grows into a person, you should not be allowing patenting of this person. That is the pending issue. I don't believe a number of scientists and Nobel laureates speak to the issue of patenting. They speak to the issue of human cloning, which is going on in America and which continues to go on this day in America. I don't think it should. That is not the pending issue, and that is not the issue the scientists address. The issue that we are bringing up is about patenting. The good Senator from Utah knows this is the time and the right place. I brought these issues up in the past year. If not now, when? This is the time. These issues are pending. Some say it is not a real issue because the Patent Office has already declared that you can't patent a person. I want to draw the attention of the Members of the body to when this debate broke open. Here is a May 17, 2002, piece in the New York Times, ``Debate on Human Cloning Turns to Patents''--just this past month. The University of Missouri has received a patent that some lawyers say could cover human cloning, potentially violating a longstanding taboo against patenting of humans. The patent covers a way of turning unfertilized eggs into embryos. That is covered by the amendment we have put forward. . . . the production of cloned mammals using that technique. And it could be used on humans. That is the issue. I ask unanimous consent that this article from the New York Times, and a similar one covering it from the Washington Post, and the Washington Times, be printed in the Record.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, if I may reclaim my time, if we are going to go into the speech of the Senator from Pennsylvania, I would like to answer his comments and finish up my comments, unless he has another question to ask. Again, I would like to go ahead and finish my statement.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Under the previous unanimous consent agreement, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, reclaiming the floor, I would like to put forward a couple of issues in response to the Senator from Pennsylvania. No. 1, this issue on the patenting of humans has been out there about a month now since a group discovered several applications of patents for the patenting of a process to create a human embryo. It has been out there, and a number of us stated we wanted to ban this procedure of patenting. No. 2, as we were going forward in this negotiation process to get the competing cloning bills forward, we were required to exchange a bill, and in our base bill was the issue of banning the patenting of people. That was exchanged this week. It has been out in the hands of Senator Specter's staff or others during this week. We have had this issue of patenting banned. Whether the Senator knew about it or not, it was in the base bill we put forward. On the issue of questioning his integrity, I did not, and I do not here. I stated earlier in my comments that those who are putting this forward do so, when they put forward the issue of cloning people, under laudable purposes: to cure debilitating diseases, the same diseases that I seek to cure. What I call disingenuous is the term ``therapeutic cloning.'' It is certainly not therapeutic to the clone, and as I have been going through the science, it is not going to work for the people who are trying to do it. If it did work for the people who were trying to do this, they are going to have to harvest a lot of eggs from women. It is not going to be therapeutic to the women from whom the eggs are harvested, and as far as I know, it is not going to be therapeutic to the clone, and, I might also add, it is not therapeutic to mankind to do this, to start at some point in the life chain, in the life cycle, creating life as livestock and be able to do research on them. Moving forward with this, and the reason this patent is a central issue, as I noted at the very outset, the whole issue in front of the Patent Office--they are claiming one way and others are claiming another--is the status of the clone. Is the clone a person, thus subject to protections under the 13th amendment against slavery or is it property, is it livestock to be owned and dealt with as its master chooses? That is the central question that is involved at the Patent Office. That is what I was saying at the outset of the speech, and that is why the issue is in front of us, because we need to resolve the issue: Is this a person protected under the 13th amendment against slavery? Is it livestock; go ahead and patent it, a new type of livestock. I am saying that what we should do is move forward with clarity for the Patent Office. They are claiming this is a person. It is subject to protection under the 13th amendment against slavery, and I am saying we should clarify that. I hope many of the Senators in this body will join me and say: Yes, that is right, we should clarify that. Even if it is a questionable issue, we should weigh on the side of, yes, this is probably life and we should not enslave it to a patent. I hope most of the Members of this body will agree and say: Yes, we are going to deny these patents. These are not going to be allowed to go forward. The notion that we have to kill one person in order to find cures for others is a false tradeoff. It has been presented to the American public in what seems to be disregard for the advances being made in this promising field of alternative nonembryonic stem cells. This is true regenerative medicine. As our national bioethics debate progresses, we must continue to closely monitor the advances being made in the field of adult stem cell research, and we need to fund it and fund it aggressively. It is important to remember that we do not have unlimited resources in our battle to prolong and improve the quality of life. Throwing money at unproven, controversial, and novel treatment regimes is foolhardly. It is better to invest where progress is being shown and progress charted. I wish to address a final point, and that is on the issue of people saying this is about your view of religion, your view of science. The point I wish to make is some have charged religion is attempting to, once again, block important scientific discoveries. This is not true. What I have argued in the past, and I will argue today, as well as what I will continue to argue in the future, is based directly on biological data, statements by those in the field of biology, the data of common observations, an objective, logical, reflective thinking about the data available. I have not once mentioned an argument based upon religion. Certainly many traditional religions, dependent on their respective positions, coincide with many of the points that have been made in the past. The Christian tradition, in particular the Catholic and much of the Evangelical, says everything relevant to this debate depends on the humanly accessible data and the logical conclusions that can be drawn from it, not on theology. Authentic religion hands this over to authentic science. The difference of view, in my judgment, depends on knowing the biological and human truth or not knowing it. It is not about a difference of religious view or the difference between religion and science. Every argument I have put forward has been based upon science, biology, and reason. To me, the present debate is about good or bad science and good or bad reasoning. Many, however, seem to be wanting to make this a debate about religion when it is not. What makes this argument so strange is that I cannot think of one Senator who does not believe in God. Indeed, we have printed above the main door when we come in, ``In God We Trust.'' The question for my colleagues to ponder may be put the other way: Does God trust us? Does he love us? And if so, when did his love start for us? I would suggest it starts very early. In closing, I think it is important that as we continue to engage this national dialogue, we strive to do so in a way that shows the profound mystery and inviolable worth of every human being from the moment of conception until natural death. It is a debate well worth having, and as a brave new world draws ever near, it becomes clearer that our own humanity in fact may depend upon it. As a final thought, I think it is unlikely that Senators today will ultimately be remembered by history for their votes on tax bills or even on bills that are pending right now--budget, trade--all of which will be important. They are important, but I think when we look back 50 years to this period of time, that may not be what history remembers. There is something truly unique about the debate on this issue, on whether you treat a person as patentable or not. The action we take today, tomorrow, and next week on this issue will have far-reaching implications and will be of great historical consequence. It is what history will ultimately remember us for during this time. I think that is why we clearly have to address this issue. That is why we have narrowly addressed the point that is in front of us. I hope that in the end we get unanimous consent in this body that we should not allow patenting of human life in any stage of its development, whether it is asexual reproduction or human reproduction. Today, yes, indeed, we in the Senate open a debate on the future of humanity and whether we shall use human life for research purposes. Let us pause and do something most of us agree on and not allow human life, whether created by a clone, in a clone, by a biotechnician or in the womb, to be patented. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, we are going to open a debate in the U.S. Senate on the future of humanity. I asked the clerk to read the entirety of the amendment because I wanted people to know what is pending now. The issue is a very narrow and a very clear one. It is about whether or not we allow the patenting of people. This is an issue that is pending. There are at least three different patents in front of the Patent Office. The issue of whether you can patent human life or the process of creating human life is a question that is a live one in front of our Government, in front of our people. As I mentioned, there are three pending today. There are likely to be many more. This is a narrow subsection of the overall issue on human cloning. This is not the issue about a moratorium on cloning. It is not the issue about a ban on human cloning. It is not the issue about therapeutic cloning. This is about whether or not we as a government will allow a person, a human in any stage or age of its development and growth, to be patented. Currently, the Patent Office is rejecting these patents, saying they have that authority under the 13th amendment to the Constitution. That is the amendment that bans slavery. I happen to think the Patent Office is on good ground to be able to say that they cannot allow these patents because this would be slavery. There are others who are contending that the young human at various stages--an embryo--is not a person, therefore is patentable; that a person can be patented because it is a piece of property. It is, in essence, livestock. It is alive, we know that. But they would contend or say that it is not a person, so therefore we are putting this forward to make it clear to the Patent Office, for the people of America, the people around the world, that you can't patent a person at any stage or age of its development and growth. That is the entirety of the amendment. The clerk read the entire amendment. Ultimately, the question that will be put before this Senate and this country, indeed the world, will be this: Shall we use human life for research purposes? Shall we use human life for commercial purposes? We are taking this as a narrow issue now on the issue of patentability. In this debate we will have to answer whether or not the young human at his or her earliest moments of life is a person or is a piece of property. That is the narrow and the focused issue that is in front of us. Cloning proponents will argue that the young human is a piece of property that can be created or destroyed at the whims of society for the benefit of others. I will argue that the young human is a person; that it is wrong to treat another person as a piece of property that can be bought and sold, created and destroyed, all at the will of those in power. I think we all understand that human cloning is an issue of vast importance to our society and for humanity. This issue, unlike others, reveals the value we hold and the worth we place on human life. It is a decision that one generation of mankind will be making for all future generations of mankind. I would also argue it is an issue that will determine what kind of future we will give to our children and grandchildren and their children and their children's children. The essential question is whether or not we will allow human beings to produce, to preordained specifications for eventual implantation or destruction, dependent upon the intentions of the technicians who create them; whether or not we will allow life to be created just to be destroyed and researched upon. The question and its corollary must be addressed before the technology overtakes our public discourse. Indeed, today we have many of these capacities to do this to us now. We are doing it to animals and mammals. We can do this in humans. The question is, Should we do this? Is it right for us to do this? Is it the point in time that we want to make this decision to do this? Do we want to make this decision for all future mankind or do we want to pause? Do we want to stop here for just a moment and say, Wait? We should really think about such a monumental step and such a monumental move. I would like to begin by making a few observations. First, as we debate the issue, we need to debate the science along with the biological reality of the human embryo from his or her earliest moments of life. We all know that the human embryo is a life. But some question whether it is a life or a person. Clearly, the human embryo--whether brought into being in a woman, whether artificially created in a test tube by fertilization, or by cloning--is seen by observation to be a new being of human genetic constitution and a unified life principle that in all normal circumstances of implementation and development will grow into an adult who will one day die. Because we call the adult a human person and because there is an essential, unified, biological continuity between him or her--by that I mean once you are alive you grow along that continuum until you die--and the initial one-celled embryo, it is clear that the one-celled embryo is an inviolable human person. If you allow it to survive and to grow, it becomes a full-scale human being under anybody's definition. As some have attempted to discount this clear understanding of the biological continuity of the human person in order to justify some human experimentation in some circumstances, I note that the people who support this are supporting it for reasons that are very good, true, altruistic, to try to find cures for others' debilitating, terrible diseases, for which I want to find a cure. But I don't want to find that cure at the cost of somebody else's life. I don't want to find that cure at the cost of my life or Senator Specter's life or Senator Reid's life or at the cost of anybody else--or young people yet to come and to be born. That is why I believe we should start with some basic definitions. Human cloning is human asexual reproduction. It is accomplished by introducing nuclear material from one or more human somatic cells into a fertilized or unfertilized oocyte whose nuclear material has been removed or inactivated so as to produce a human living being--at any stage of development--that is genetically virtually identical to an existing or previously existing human being--the human being from whom the nuclear material was taken. In essence, if we take nuclear material from the Presiding Officer or from myself and put it inside an egg and start the egg growing, there is a human of identical genetic material to me, to the Presiding Officer, and to anybody else in this room. Roughly, the debate over human cloning has fallen into two categories, misleading as those categories may be: reproductive cloning and so-called research or therapeutic cloning. Two-thirds of the American public, the President of the United States, a large majority of the House of Representatives, Senator Landrieu, and myself hold the position that all human cloning should be banned. It is a position based in large part on the principle that you should not create human life as a means of something else, especially purposely to destroy it, the point being--and the President put it very well--we should not be creating life just to destroy it or do research on it. Some in the Senate don't want a full ban. They want a limited ban-- what they refer to as ``preproductive cloning,'' but not on so-called research or therapeutic cloning. All cloning is, of course, reproductive; that is, all human cloning produces new human life. That is the very nature of it. If you produce a human clone, it is a young human something. It is a human person; it is a human life. If you allow it to grow, it is not going to grow into an elephant or a tomato. It is going to grow into a human, if you allow it to grow. I think the notion that human cloning can be therapeutic is both misleading and disingenuous. ``Therapeutic'' cloning, as some proponents of cloning refer to it, is really the process by which an embryo is specially created for the directly intended purpose of subsequently killing it for its parts. Some proponents of human cloning claim an embryo created in this manner will have cells for a genetic match to the patient being cloned and thus would not be subjected to the patient's immune system. I will address this issue of transplantation rejection later. Let me say that this particular claim is not scientifically true. To describe the process of destructive human cloning as ``therapeutic'' when the intent is to create a new human life destined to its virtual destruction is misleading. However, one would like to describe the process of destructive cloning, it is certainly not therapeutic for the clone that has been created and them disemboweled for the purported benefit of its twin. All human cloning is reproductive, regardless of the intention of the researchers and the technicians who have created that life or copied it. I do not believe we should create human life to be used by others and, in the process, destroy it. Yet that is exactly what is being proposed by those who support cloning in limited circumstances. And however they might name the procedure--whether they call it nuclear transplantation, therapeutic cloning, therapeutic cellular transfer, DNA regenerative therapy, or some other euphemism--it is simply destruction. The cloning of a human embryo is wrong in all circumstances, whatever it is called. Human cloning is wrong. Yet proponents of so-called therapeutic cloning claim that with the use of this controversial technique we will be able to cure a whole host of dread diseases that plague humanity--diseases that I want to cure, diseases that I helped double the funding for at the National Institutes. I am cochairman of the cancer caucus in the Senate. I want to see these cured. Cancer runs in my family. I want to see these things cured, but not at the cost of other people's lives. I wish to take a minute to explain why some of the claims of those who support cloning are overhyped. First, the argument that so-called therapeutic cloning will solve the immuno-response rejection problem is questionable. Second, the reliance on this type of cloning as a treatment for those who are suffering will ultimately only be realized by heavily relying on the exploitation of women. We should also not forget that this practice would be available only to the rich. First, the myth of therapeutic cloning: It is becoming increasingly obvious that the so-called therapeutic purposes lack the evidence to back up their claims for the purpose of their technique of supposedly a ``regenerative'' type of medicine. The promise that some have held out that the use of cloning technologies produce rejection-proof cells is starting to crumble under closer scrutiny. This is the argument. If we just clone a person, they will have cells that are genetic matches and you will be able to put those back into your body and the body itself will not reject them because it is saying these are my cells. It would get around this immune-repressive problem we have with heart transfers or other organs or tissue transfers that have immuno-repressive problems. The problem is that under closer scrutiny, cloning does not work that well. We know that cells derived from clonal embryos created for the purpose of stem cell transplantation contain mitochondrial DNA--that DNA passed through the maternal contribution to the zygote. In other words, this is from outside the genetic material. To say the Presiding Officer provided it encased in mitochondrial material that is from a different person, it is a different person. Therefore, it is not genetically identical to the donor/recipient. This nonidentity can trigger an immune-response rejection. If you take an outside egg, take your genetic material, put it in this egg and grow the cells up to a certain age, and kill this embryo for those cells, then you put it back in you, the problem is the egg isn't your matching genetic material. Some of that carries over to the characteristic of this genetic material of test cells that you are putting into your body. It still triggers the immune-response problem. That is one problem. Further, there is not one animal model that shows this is not the case. In other words, we don't have an animal model that says if you just clone a person you can inject it right back into the person. We don't have a single animal model that says we get around this problem-- none. Yet we are going to move forward on this theory that this works when we don't even have a single model that that works? In fact, Dr. Rudolph Jaenisch, one of the leading vocal proponents of cloning admits that his study into the therapeutic value of cloning in animal models ``raise[s] the provocative possibility that even genetically matched cells derived by therapeutic cloning may still face barriers to effective transplantation.'' This is one of the leading advocates who is saying, early on, we don't get around immuno-suppressant problems, one of the leading claims of the cloning advocates. In addition, it is now known that there are problems with gene expression and gene imprinting that can cause cell deterioration as well as other abnormalities in the clonal embryos. Also, there are practical considerations, considerations that have led many of the advocates of cloning to concede the impracticality of efforts to custom make stem cells. That is what cloning is really about: Custom making stem cells for me, the Senator from Nevada, the Senator from Washington, and others. It is saying: OK, we are going to make some cells just for me. These are going to be custom made to fit what I need. In an article by Peter Aldhous, entitled ``Can They Rebuild Us?'', published in Nature Magazine, the author notes that: [I]t may come as a surprise that many experts do not now expect therapeutic cloning to have a large clinical impact-- many researchers have come to doubt whether therapeutic cloning will ever be efficient enough to be commercially viable. It would be astronomically expensive, says James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who led the team that first isolated E[mbryonic] S[tem] cells from human blastocysts. For the advantage of my colleagues, I yield the floor so that colleagues can take advantage of some of their time. I yield to the Senator from Nevada.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the pending amendment be set aside.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I want to proceed to the discussion of this issue on the overall patenting because that is the narrow issue on which we are focused and it ties in, very closely, with this issue of cloning. I was mentioning the Nature Magazine article about whether this will work because the issue of patents will be that people are seeking to create these humans, and then own them through the patenting process; that people will research and invest commercially in them. It should really send a chill through all of us. I think the question one should be asking, even ahead of that, is: Will this even work? If we are going to allow this to take place, one might advocate, well, OK, this is going to work and create all these cures for diseases; therefore, maybe we ought to risk this to humanity. I say, even on the science of this, the very basic science of this, the science says this isn't going to work either, so that we would be subjecting humanity to the notion that you can patent people, when it does not even work. And it is not going to proceed. Here is the quote I was talking about by Peter Aldhous, entitled ``Can They Rebuild Us?'' in Nature Magazine, dated April 5, 2001: It may come as a surprise that many experts do not now expect therapeutic cloning to have a large clinical impact-- many researchers have come to doubt whether therapeutic cloning will ever be efficient enough to be commercially viable. It would be astronomically expensive, says James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who led the team that first isolated E[mbryonic] S[tem] cells from human blastocysts. The article continues: [M]ammalian cloning is inefficient, even in the hands of the most skilled scientists. Of the 277 cells from Dolly's mother that were fused with donor egg cells-- This is 277 eggs. And then because you had to make 277 of these, 277 eggs-- less than 30 developed to the blastocyst stage. That is the early stages of development. At the time experts believed efficiency would improve. But despite feverish efforts by groups worldwide, progress has been disappointing. We don't at the moment have any real handle on how to greatly increase the efficiency, admits Alan Coleman of PPL Therapeutics near Edinburgh, the company involved in the Dolly experiments. So 277 eggs, to get to 30 developed to the blastocyst stage, to eventually get to one Dolly. So 277 to one, that is how many eggs we are going to have to have from women to be able to start these, to be able to get some sort of development moving along. You are talking about a very inefficient process, and one where you have to have a lot of women superovulating, collecting these eggs so we can get more of these clones going. At what price to women? At what price to humanity? Also, in a recent LA Times interview--this is from May 10, 2002, about a month ago--Thomas Okarma of Geron Corporation said that cloning for customized stem cell treatments would take, ``thousands of [human] eggs on an assembly line'' to produce a custom therapy for a single person. He says, ``This proceeds as a non-starter commercially.'' The odds favoring success ``are vanishingly small.'' He said this. He is one of the lead researchers from Geron Corporation. The possibilities of success ``are vanishingly small.'' Yet we want to take this step for humanity on the science where the science says the opportunities, the possibilities ``are vanishingly small''? We want to go ahead and step forward and say: Yes, we should do research, we should patent people on an opportunity that is ``vanishingly small''? That is not a wise step to take on the science of it, let alone how you view the human person, whether or not you should allow patenting of people on the science of it. It argues we should not. This leads me to my second point which is, in order to be effective, therapeutic cloning must rely on the exploitation of women and the practice will be available only to the rich. This practice will have to rely upon the exploitation of women and will be available only to the rich. Aside from being highly impractical, the claim that therapeutic cloning will lead to cures is one that can ultimately only be realized with the blatant exploitation of women. In order to conduct so-called therapeutic or research cloning on a scale that would yield just a portion of the benefits cloning advocates promise, one would need to harvest a vast number of human eggs. The only place you get those is from women. As noted by Dr. David Prentice, a stem cell researcher at the University of Indiana: More than 100 million people in the United States suffer from medical conditions for which embryonic stem cell therapies are being promoted as promising--Parkinson's disease, stroke, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, juvenile diabetes, ALS, and more. If 20 percent of cloning attempts succeeded in reaching the blastocyst stage of development--the success rate in animal cloning--and stem cells are derived from 10 percent of these clon[al] embryos-- a rate consistent with such success rates in deriving embryonic stem cell lines from non-cloned embryos--how many eggs will we need? Based on these assumptions, just his assumptions, saying OK, let's take our animal models on cloning, that we are going to say we can be just as successful with human cloning as we can in our animal models, and we will try to derive stem cells for just 10 percent of the people who suffer from one of these diseases, based on these assumptions it would take 800 million human eggs to treat just 16 percent of the Americans who suffer from conditions for which these therapies involving embryonic stem cells have been promised, to be able to address the treatments needed for just 16 percent of Americans suffering. I am just saying, only the rich can afford this. It is going to be very expensive. Let's just say the top 16 percent of those who suffer can afford to do this. We will be able to treat those. With current knowledge and our ability, and even including a factor of favorability, saying we will be able to get this done efficiently from being a human egg to being a clone, because you to have make that transition, you will need 800 million eggs from women. Where are you going to get those? If 10 eggs are harvested per woman, then 80 million women of child-bearing age would have to submit to the risk of drugs and hyperovulation and surgical extraction procedures, providing the eggs that would be needed to develop therapies for just a fraction, 16 percent of those who are suffering from these conditions. The egg dearth is a mathematical certainty and is one reason researchers say therapeutic cloning will not be generally available for medical treatment. For example, a year ago biotech researchers Jon Odorico, Dan Kaufman, and James Thompson admitted the following in the research journal Stem Cells. They said: The poor availability of human eggs, the low efficiency of the nuclear cell procedure, and the long population- doubling time of human embryonic stem cells make it difficult to envision this, therapeutic cloning to obtain stem cells, becoming a routine clinical procedure, even if ethical considerations were not a significant point of contention. James Thompson is the person who developed the embryonic stem cell, first found those in humans. He is saying that even if you didn't have ethical considerations, you will not be able to do this on a regular basis. That is aside from the overall issue. That is just the science of it. That is not questioning whether a human person should be patented or not. That is the question of whether you could do it, whether you have sound science based upon being able to do it. Concerns such as these as well as others have led a group of progressive scientists, virtually all of whom support abortion rights, to state in their letter of support for a ban on all human cloning that: Although we may differ in our views regarding reproductive issues, we agree that a human embryo should not be cloned for the specific intention of using it as a resource for medical experimentation or for producing a baby. Moreover, we believe that the market for women's eggs that would be created by this research will provide unethical incentives for women to undergo health- threatening hormone treatment and surgery. We are also concerned about the increased bio-industrialization of life by the scientific community and life science companies, and shocked and dismayed that clonal human embryos have been patented and declared to be human ``inventions.'' This is a very real concern. As I am sure many of you are aware, the typical in vitro fertilization procedure involves a collection of eggs from women who seek to become pregnant in this manner. The superovulatory drugs typically used in this procedure will result in anywhere from 10 to 40 eggs. The use of superovulatory drugs has already been linked to ovarian cancer and other health risks. Some people choose to go ahead with that risk because of other concerns and desires they have. The market for women's eggs is not just a fiction. In fact, the market for women's eggs has already developed. For example, the company Advanced Cell Technology of Massachusetts paid women up to $4,000 per egg donation. This is the group that claimed already to have cloned human beings in the United States. They paid women up to $4,000 per egg donation. There is another issue we should consider: Whether or not we are going to allow companies to pay for women's eggs, to create this marketplace, to allow this marketplace to take place. Such a market for women's eggs will be a true threat to the health of many women. Women undergoing the health risks associated with egg donation for the purpose of having children is certainly one thing in that they choose and the life comes forward. That they would be induced by some to undergo these health risks for money is another issue. It is striking, as I watch this debate unfold, that corporate interests in the biotech community want us to countenance the idea that society will be able to solve the health care problems of the world on the backs of poor women. Asking us to do so is an assault not only on the dignity of the human embryo created and destroyed in this process but also on the dignity of the woman who sells her body parts to accomplish it. The commodification of women and their eggs is a very real concern that we all share and is yet another reason on a long list for why we must outlaw all human cloning and why we must do so now. That is not the issue in front of us today. The issue today is whether we should allow patenting of human embryos, patenting of people. There are alternatives, however, that do not use controversial and unproven techniques to improve health. Many of you who follow this issue already know the advances being made, and the adult nonembryonic stem cell research continues to show great promise. Not only are we beginning to treat the myriad diseases which plague humanity, but we are continuing to find we can do so without the use of controversial techniques or research which relies on the death of another human being. As to the adult stem cell area, I want to spend some time on this because I want to solve these diseases as well. I think we have an avenue that is being proven in science today that we should pursue aggressively, fund aggressively, fund at the Federal level, and get these cures to the people. In fact, to date there is no clinical application of embryonic stem cells in people, much less those derived from cloned embryos, that are used with humans, whereas there are many diseases already being treated in humans with adult nonembryonic stem cells. We already have human clinical trials with adult stem cells. I would like to list just a few of these recent advances. I am comparing clones, cloned embryonic stem cells, no human trials or applications. It is fully legal today to clone humans in the United States, fully legal. It has been going on; companies are claiming to have done it. There are no human applications, none. Adult stem cells are these repair cells in each of our bodies--Senator Specter's body, my body, right now. We have them in all parts of our body, these repair cells that go to a particular area and help it build back up and build more cells where they are needed. It is the maintenance crew in the body. These adult stem cells go places and help where there are needs. What we are finding is that we can pull those out, grow them outside the body, put them back in with amazing results in cures in some of these terrible, debilitating areas. There was one reported in the paper just today about liver stem cells being converted into pancreatic stem cells that were insulin secreting to be able to cure diabetes. That was just reported in the paper today. Adult bone marrow stem cells: These are in us now, grow extensively, transformed into functional liver cells. Dr. Catherine Verfaillie's group in Minnesota continues to show more and more uses for the multi-potent adult progenitor cells from bone marrow. These are adult bone marrow stem cells. The team has now shown that these can transform into functional liver cells. The adult stem cells also were grown in culture for over 100 generations of the cells, twice the length of time previously thought possible with adult cells. This was in a recent journal, May 2002--adult liver stem cells from pancreatic cells. Researchers at the University of Florida have transformed highly purified adult liver stem cells into pancreatic stem cells. Now they are taking liver stem cells and making them into pancreatic cells. The cells self-assemble in a culture and form three-dimensional islet structures--that is where you get the secretion of insulin--express pancreatic genes, produce pancreatic hormones and, best of all, secrete insulin--to be able to cure diabetes. When you implant it into diabetic mice, the transformed cells reverse their hyperglycemia in 10 days. Ammon Peck, one of the team leaders, said: Adult stem cells appear to offer great promise for the production of an almost unlimited supply of insulin-producing cells and islets of Langerhans . . . A particular type of cell that produces insulin. The ability to grow insulin-producing cells from liver stem cells shows the remarkable potential of adult stem cells into for future cell therapy. This was in a June 4, 2002, online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Adult stem cells successfully treat Parkinson's. Think about that-- successful treatment for Parkinson's. Has the Chair even heard of this? On April 8, Dr. Mike Levesque at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles reported a total reversal of symptoms in the first patient treated, a 57-year-old former fighter pilot. The patient is still without symptoms 3 years after adult neural stem cells were removed from his brain, coaxed into becoming dopamine-producing cells, and then reimplanted. So here they took this 57-year-old former fighter pilot, took these adult neural stem cells, nerve stem cells, removed them from his brain, coaxed them into becoming dopamine-producing cells, and reimplanted them. This was in a human trial, not animal. ``I think transplantation of the patient's own neural stem cells and differentiated dopaminergic neurons is more biologically and physiologically compatible--more efficacious and more elegant,'' said Levesque. The results show that adult stem cells from a patient's own brain can aid in treatment of Parkinson's. This was all accomplished without the requirement for immuno-suppression since the patient's own adult stem cells were used. Again, it is your own stem cells. There is no immuno-suppression problem since the patient's own adult stem cells were used. In addition to its use for Parkinson's, the technique is under study for juvenile diabetes, stroke, brain tumors, spinal cord injury, and other conditions. The results were presented at the meeting of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. Think about that. Three years after these were taken, were coaxed into becoming dopamine-producing cells and were reimplanted, they are showing a total reversal of symptoms in the patient. Incredible. Adult stem cells can form potentially all tissues. Injection of a single adult bone marrow stem cell can reform the entire bone marrow of a mouse, forming functional marrow and blood cells and saving the life of the mouse. The transplanted bone marrow also could form functional cells of liver, lung, gastrointestinal tract--esophagus, stomach, intestine, colon--and skin, as well as other cells in heart and skeletal muscle. The experiments also provided evidence that adult stem cells ``home in'' to sites of tissue damage. This was from Dr. D.S. Krause on May 4, 2001, in the publication ``Cell.'' Fifth, adult stem cells repair heart damage. I am talking, again, about human clinical trials. Heart damage. Listen to this: Researchers at NIH and the New York Medical College- Valhalla used mice to show that injecting adult bone marrow stem cells into damaged hearts could rebuild heart tissue and help restore heart function. Newly formed heart tissue occupied over two-thirds of the damaged portion of the heart 9 days after the transplant. In other experiments, significant repair of heart damage was achieved by simply stimulating the production and release of stem cells from bone marrow, with the cells migrating to the heart and repairing damage. The studies indicate that adult stem cells can generate new heart tissue, decreasing the damage of coronary artery disease. That was in a magazine called Nature on April 5, 2001. This was a mouse trial, not human. The notion that we have to kill one person in order to find cures for others is a false trade-off that has been presented to the American public in what seems to be a total disregard of the advances made in the promising fields of alternative nonembryonic sources of stem cells. If we want to talk about regenerative medicine, this is where we should focus; this is the area of regenerative medicine. We are doing it today in human clinical trials.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. I ask the amendment I have be considered after the Allen amendment tonight. I am prepared to put it forward this evening, if it would be acceptable to the leader to do that.

Mr. BROWNBACK. We will then be able to dispose of the Allen amendment tomorrow morning. So I have no reservations or objections to doing that if our colleagues would be interested in taking that approach.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.